I imagine Bullet Train will end up with a nice stud job on the continent!I heard good things about the 2yo half-brother Morpheus, but he was very green on debut. I think there is a yearling full-sister and Kind is back in foal to Galileo, having been barren to him last year.

It would be awful if he fired blanks - remember Gorgeous George? (George Washington). The figures are silly really, as you say a lot of it is just on paper, and the chances of another one like him are so remote. Noble Mission is a full brother and although obviously good does not yet look as good, and dear old Bullet Train, a three parts brother who can't keep up..... Although I wonder now if he'll get a chance to do his own thing now.

The value I think is calculated on him covering 100 mares a year, for 10 years at £100k a pop....... or something like that! I read that he will be tested for fertility on a non thoroughbred mare before he goes to stud - I wouldn't mind the product of that mating.

I was so impressed at how laid back he was when he walked into the parade ring on Saturday, what an amazing creature.

As a totally pointless aside, I traced my welsh section A mare's family tree back, to the 1500s! Welshies bloodlines are very well recorded. She goes back to ALL 3 of the founding thoroughbreds! I was stunned!

To a certain extent it probably is, but only a foolish breeder would plan a mating without taking into account the female line. The stallion and mare need to complement each other.

Of course, as you say, it is easier to see patterns of speed/stamina/ground preference from a stallion point of view due to the number of foals they can produce. But occasionally you get a mare like Urban Sea (Dam of Galileo (Frankel's sire), Sea The Stars, etc) or Hasili (dam of Dansili, Cacique, Banks Hill, etc) who produce star after star.

The value placed on Frankel is a bit pointless as he's not for sale. Also there are some crazy figures being touted as to how much Juddmonte will earn in stud fees from him.

On the genetic front, I'm pretty sure that there are at least 20 "Foundation mares" in the TB breed. Obviously a lot if those lines have died out over the years, much as the vast majority of horses trace back to The Darley Arabian rather than the other foundation sires.

"...all Thoroughbreds trace back to a single broodmare who appears in the pedigree of each of the three foundation stallions. As well, most breeding theories focus on sires, however, traits such as heart size and DNA in mitochondria (the energy sources in cells) are actually carried by the females, explaining why large-heart horses like Secretariat were most successful as broodmare sires."

Concession made in another article: "The dam is much overlooked, because a stallion can have a hundred foals a year whereas a mare can have one."